Celebrating Billy Gibbons on his 75th birthday. —Ed.
Billy Gibbons is an open-minded guy. While I was busy hating the English synthpop likes of Depeche Mode and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the leader of Texas legends ZZ Top was listening to them, and enough light bulbs were going off in his head to illuminate all 1,954 miles of the US-Mexico border.
Anybody who thought Gibbons of the La Grange laugh and Methusaleh beard was some front-porch blues and boogie purist was sadly mistaken—Billy dug the synthesizers, and Billy dug the drum machines, and most of all Billy dug the acceleration—the more beats per minute the better. And they all set him to thinking—if Black Oak Arkansas could bring electricity to Arkansas, why couldn’t ZZ Top bring New Wave to the Lone Star State? And become MTV Gods and make a bazillion dollars in the process?
It didn’t happen all at once, but it all came together on 1983’s Eliminator, easily one of the slickest, glossiest, supercharged, and yes weirdest albums ever to blow across the finish line between your ears, sending tumblin’ tumbleweeds a’ tumblin’ in all directions. An unholy fusion of down home blooz-boogie and the latest in studio technology, it put plenty a purist off his BBQ, but by gum it exploded out of the speakers just like that 1933 Ford Coupe in the band’s star-making videos.
And they kept what counted most; Billy still sounded like the biggest lecher this side of the Rio Grande, and his 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard still had enough Texas hot sauce on it to burn ears from Houston to Honolulu. And each and every rip-snortin’ power chord reminds me of a boast from a previous album; “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide.”
No doubt about it, while Gibbons’ Nuevo Uva move was a wildly successful gambit—in his review of the album Chuck Eddy noted drily that “Every human on earth bought about four copies”—it came at a cost. As anyone who’s ever chortled along with “La Grange” or salivated along with “Tush” or done the border boogie to “Heard It on the X” will attest. They were the real Alamo, those songs—pure border radio, 50,000 watts of good-natured badass blues charm.
But motorvation has its own charm, rocket science has a lot to be said for it, and ZZ Top didn’t let the studio gloss and newfangled gadgetry lower the musical temperature (they run hot). Which is why anybody who calls Eliminator a case of “selling out” is barking up the wrong cactus. Eliminator wasn’t the result of crass commercial calculation—it was evolution run wonderfully amok. I used to hate it—now I sit back and enjoy the torque.
“Gimme All Your Lovin’” is a content-free declaration of the band’s newfound aesthetic—a buff-shined, drum-machine-driven launch into musical hyperspace, with streamlined vocals to cut down on the friction and lots of retro-booster-bursts from Gibbons’ guitar to remind you that these guys are a power trio and not synthpop wymps. And what Billy plays between booster bursts is pure Texas hold ‘em.
This one proceeds at a healthy 120 beats per minute, which makes it a SLOW one compared to a couple of the others. Doesn’t put them in the same league as, say, the Ramones, mind you, but not bad for a blues band that once covered “Dust My Broom.” And they sound faster than they really are because, thanks to the crystal-clear drive of that drum machine, you hear every beat.
“Got Me Under Pressure” clocks in a 158 bpms, which is nearing Ramones levels, and features lots of nasty guitar bang, pop and sizzle by Gibbons, whose vocals are as raw as in days of yore. It never made the big time, this one, I suspect because it lacks a clever set of lyrics about tush or pearl necklaces or sleeping bags or cheap sunglasses. And while this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Gibbons almost sounds like he’s sweating, when the band’s patented formula for success is never letting them see you sweat.
ZZ Top dress for success on the techno-metal classic “Sharp Dressed Man,” which could have been by Robert Palmer had he an ounce of real boogie running through his icy cool veins. Same mechanized gloss, but the beat is sleeker—the big boom comes by means of guitar, and not the drums, which are built for speed, not thump.
“I Need You” is more old school blooz—unfortunately it lacks panache, humor, and charm, to say nothing of loco-motion. You get the idea they were trying to reproduce the success of 1979’s “I Thank You,” never mind that “I Thank You” was slow-motion shlock too. Should’ve pruned this one and replaced it with, I don’t know, a Kraftwerk cover maybe. (Wouldn’t that be the shit?) Gibbons gets some nice guitar licks in, and that’s about it.
Dusty Hill handles lead vocals on the speedy and raucous ode to sexual frustration “I Got the Six.” Hill’s in a blue-balls funk—he’s got the six but no nine to go with it, and it’s driving the poor boy to distraction. And the porno mag on the coffee table is just driving home his predicament. Why he’s feeling downright “abnormal,” and the woman he’s with ain’t giving it up: “Look at this, what a pair, she won’t let me touch her there, she’s so discriminating,” he sings. Followed by, “This is weird, it’s time to blow, I just heard the rooster crow/I guess I’ll have to spank my monkey.” Sad. But that “she’s so discriminating” is the funniest thing on the album, and not getting laid hasn’t been this hilarious since Kix’s “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.”
“Legs” is high-octane Tejas electoboogie and so sleek, slick, streamlined and in general NASA-level aerodynamic (“Houston, we don’t have a problem”) it’s no wonder it took the world by storm. Gibbons rips it up and tears it up on guitar, and the damn thing just never slows down. “Thug” is a percussive funk workout that (and it took litigation to settle the issue) was ultimately credited to producer/synth player Lindon Hudson. It’s about a crime spree in the offing, and man does it percolate. A great deep cut.
“TV Dinners” is mid-tempo inexorable and a tip of the hat to the folks who brought Hungry-Man Frozen dinners to your refrigerator aisle. Billy reviews a variety of culinary options, that is when he isn’t playing explosive power chords and in general grinding the salisbury steak exceedingly fine. Gibbons doesn’t care if he’s eating “Twenty year old turkey in a thirty year old tin”—he “can’t wait until tomorrow, and thaw one out again,” and so long as the chicken isn’t blue he’s going to enjoy it. ZZ Top may dress like dudes, but their idea of haute cuisine isn’t much more refined than that of Run-D.M.C., who’ve been known to eat dog food straight out of the can.
The drum machine dominates on the less-than-dominating “Dirty Dog.” The damn thing sure does make a racket—why, you can barely hear Gibbons’ guitar think. Bottom line is Billy wants that scurvy dog out of the yard because (and its worth quoting in full) “Dug your bush and your ass was fine/I dug your jelly and your mighty mind/But you rubbed it on another guy/You’re history and this is why/You’re just a dog.”
Billy’s not as good natured as usual and that’s a pity if not a problem—the blues are no kinder to women than plenty of other genres. But let’s face it; Gibbons’ high good humor and essentially good nature are part and parcel of what makes ZZ Top so doggone lovable. And why should he care if she rubs her mighty mind on another guy?
The almost old school “If I Could Only Flag Her Down” confirms that the album’s final songs aren’t the album’s best songs, but on the other hand this one’s as close as Eliminator gets to the ZZ Top of yore. Beard sounds like he’s actually playing drums, there’s nothing streamlined about Gibbons’ vocals, and he lets rip on guitar as he does nowhere else. So what am I complaining about?
“Bad Girl,” same deal—that furious tempo has nothing more to do with beats per minute than “Tush” did, Gibbons cuts loose on both vocals and six-string, and the song has a mock-live feel that lets you know the Tejas threesome haven’t lost touch with their arena boogie roots. It’s a real fandango, not Nuevo Wavo, and it’s as if the band were saying “We’re still in here, folks, and we can still burn your good lives down.”
Everybody got slicker in the eighties. Van Halen and Rush and even Bruce Springsteen joined the synthesizer revolution, and while it seemed a deplorable development to many at the time it was (when it worked) as welcome as it was inevitable, and it led to some mighty music. “Jump” is the best song Van Halen ever produced, maybe the best song anybody ever produced for that matter, and its greatness has nothing whatsoever to do with brother Eddie’s much-vaunted ax chops.
But nobody stepped as boldly into that brave new world as ZZ Top. Stepped, hell—they jumped in alligator-skin boots first, and this when they seemed like the last band in the world that would do it. And it worked because they had the chops, wit, and huevos to pull it off, which is the same reason Van Halen was able to pull it off, when you come to think of it.
And it paid dividends—no more cheap sunglasses for this Texas power trio. And they could finally afford to give their gals real pearl necklaces instead of the kind you make for free with your jizz. And talk about your luxury items—just check out that airbrushed to a high gloss cherry red retro Ford roadster that’s on the cover, that was all over MTV, that was everywhere really. It was old, old as the dustbowl, but had a Corvette engine in it. Perfect metaphor for Eliminator, that.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
